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Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz on Go For No! and How to Handle Rejection · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterLife.com.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: One of the themes we frequently talk about on the Daily Writer Podcast, as well as in the Daily Writer Club, is the reality that all authors are business people.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Anytime that you provide a product or a service in exchange for money, that means you automatically have a business.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: And this is especially true for those of us who write our own books in addition to doing client work like ghostwriting, editing, or copywriting.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: However, many writers and creative types struggle with this whole idea of selling.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: We don't like the idea of selling, and we definitely don't think of ourselves as salespeople.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I'm really excited to bring you this fun, informative, and I think potentially life-changing interview with the amazing Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Richard and Andrea are the founders of Courage Crafters Incorporated and the authors of the best-selling book Go for No, Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There, and many other books, including their brand new book, When They Say No, The Definitive Guide for Handling Rejection in Sales.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: They speak internationally, teaching business, sales, and entrepreneurial audiences how to overcome their fear of rejection and achieve extraordinary sales success by hearing no more often.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: Their business building strategies have been embraced by people in various businesses and industries to rave reviews and amazing results.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Richard and Andrea are also the producers of a 98-minute personal development movie, and their GoForNo philosophy has been featured in hundreds of online and offline publications, including Inc.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Magazine, Forbes, Success Magazine, and many more.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: The book GoForNo reached number one on Amazon's selling book list in 2010.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: The book has remained in the top 50 of sales books for the last 12 years and has become a well-known methodology in the world of selling, widely recognized as the singular best program for dealing with rejection in business.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: For more on GoForNow, visit GoForno.com.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: So in today's conversation, Richard and Andrea walk us through the story of how they wrote GoForK No and why they wrote it as a story, as well as how sensitive writers, and let's be honest, that maybe includes me and you once in a while, and how sensitive writers can handle rejection and use it to build success.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: We also spend some time in the second half of this conversation talking about how to handle prospective clients who have ghosted you.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: And this is a very real-time conversation.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't actually even expecting to talk about this in this interview, but I just kind of threw it out there towards uh, you know, in the second half of this conversation because I've actually had a couple of prospective clients who, to make a long story short, we had great conversations.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: They seemed very interested in me ghostwriting a book for them, and I sent proposals and then they just kind of ghosted me.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: And that does happen sometimes, as anybody in sales can attest to.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: So I just threw the question out there, hey guys, how would you recommend that I deal with this?
3:25
SPEAKER_01: And I really think the responses to my dilemma and to um to the things that I'm dealing with in very real time in my ghostwriting business, I think those are going to be really, really helpful for you too.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love these guys.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I really love the GoFor No book.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was phenomenal.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: And I really, really love their follow-up, which I mentioned earlier, which is called When They Say No.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Guys, all of us are in sales.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: If you are an author and you're selling books or if you're doing client work, you are in sales.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't say this very often on this podcast, but I I know I always push uh when people are on the show, I'm always pushing their books, of course.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: I always want to promote them.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm very sincere about that.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna give it like an extra couple of exclamation marks in there today because you really seriously need to get these two books.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: They're short books, they're quick reads, but my goodness, if you read them and you put these principles into practice in your business, especially if you're doing client work, these are radically going to help you.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: So run, don't walk, run to your nearest bookstore or just hop on Amazon and get these.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: There are links in the show notes.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: So if it seems like I'm big fans of these guys, I really, truly am.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: This was such a fun conversation.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And before I get right to it, I want to give a special shout out to my good friend and business coach and extraordinary author, Miss Honore Corter, for making the connection to Richard and Andrea.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Honore, as always.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I appreciate you so much.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: So, with all that said and with this kind of long uh episode introduction, let's get right to the good stuff, which is the conversation with Richard and Andrea.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Andrea and Richard, thank you so much for taking the time to be a guest on the show today.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited about this conversation.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: I want to give a shout-out to our mutual good friend Honore Corter, who made the connection.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: So thanks, honore.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: I know you'll listen to this when it comes out.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Andrea and Richard.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Kent.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: It is so good to be with you.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Yep, great to be here.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: So I have to say, I know you hear this all the time, but you never really get tired of hearing this as an author, do you?
5:28
SPEAKER_01: But I really, really loved GoForNo.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: I read this uh about a month ago.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh, when Andrew, you sent it to me, and uh, I just really I'm kind of in love with this book.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Does that sound weird to say?
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I don't know if that sounds weird or not.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: We do love to hear that, and then no, it never gets old.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: It never gets old.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Now, you also I have to ask about this because this was really cool.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: This is possibly the shortest book that I've ever seen in the world.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: It's uh I don't know if you have a title for this, and people listening on audio can't see this.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: It's a what you call this, a four-page miniature book that's uh yeah.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to, I'll give you the story behind that.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, that was gonna be my next question.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So you read my book.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: So um we have a friend in Los Angeles uh named Stuart Blist, and we were out to dinner with him with he and his wife, and we were talking about Go for No.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Oh my god, you got when we get home, I've got to show you the book that my my um daughter Hadley, how old was Hadley at the time?
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Like five or six.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, five or six years old that my daughter Hadley did.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's called One Day I Asked My Daddy for a Cookie, right?
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Written by Hadley, illustrated by Hadley.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh and you know, the it's it's literally her demonstrating go for no through the eyes of a young child, which is asking for something and then hearing no and asking again and hearing no and asking again.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, you know, as children are um often to do, uh, you know, she she wore her parents down and she got the cookie she wanted.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a message, it's really at the core of the go-for-no philosophy.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a message that we knew is something we knew when we were young, which was you know, persistence and tenacity was important.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And not that, you know, people should behave like a spoiled child.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: We're not suggesting that, you know, that go for no is a concept, is something that you use to, you know, to bludgeon people with.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, a lot of people forget what it with the tenacity we had when we were young.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, just learning to ride a bike.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who gets on a bike falls off and says, Oh, I fell off once, I'm never gonna bother doing that again.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: No, we kept at it and we failed again and again and again.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually we succeed.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: So that little book there is uh very meaningful, Andreas.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: So we took, so it was originally an eight and a half by 11.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: We shrunk it down, we made it our business card.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: So it is just this uh four-sided business card.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And we started our publishing career by buying the rights from Hadley.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I guess you could say this is a little predatory sounding as publishers because we took advantage of the fact she was six and didn't know any better.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: We we we dangled a hundred dollars cash in front of her and we're like, Hadley, here you go.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna buy the rights to your book because we want to use this in our speeches.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: And so she sold us the rights to the to the book.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: We took it, and um, yes, and so we've shared it with audiences all over the world, really.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, yeah.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I I love it.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: This is this is probably the best business card ever.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: It's just really, really great.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, I want to tell you, this is interesting too.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: It's the only business card we've ever had or have ever heard of where people contact us and say, Can I get another 10 of your business cards?
8:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so that's never happened.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: That says something.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: I'd love the idea of having a business card be a miniature book.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's just such a cool concept for a whole bunch of reasons.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, congrats.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I I love it.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: It literally at my other, I have two desks in this office.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: It it's I have this taped to one of the cabinets of my other desk.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: So it's right there all the time.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: That's so great.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk for a bit?
9:14
SPEAKER_01: For those, I know it's hard to believe that people have not heard about Go4Know because you've been doing this for a while.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And there's so many people across the world who who know about the Go4Know message.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: But for those who don't, for those who've been living under a rock for the past decade or or whatever length of time it's been, can you give us the gist of what is go for know all about?
9:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the the fundamental idea behind it, it's a strategy and I guess part strategy, part concept, part philosophy, that you need to intentionally increase your failure rate in order to be more successful.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, from a sales standpoint, that means you need to be willing to hear no more often in order to get more yeses from an um innovation or fundraising or really any any other endeavor.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: You've got to be willing to fail in order to succeed.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: You can't have more of one without more of the other.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: And so uh the book itself is a fable about a guy who is a copier salesman who wakes up one morning in a house that he discovers belongs to him 10 years in the future, a wildly successful future version of himself.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: And he he actually ends up meeting himself, this 10-year future version.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: And together they kind of go on a little bit of a journey to figure out how did this other hymn become so successful?
10:33
SPEAKER_02: What was it?
10:33
SPEAKER_02: And it was this idea of go for no, it's this, it's the strategy.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to ask about the structure of this, but well, not really the structure, but why you decided to write this as a as a fable or as a story, as opposed to a straight up nonfiction book?
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Because I I know a lot of people do that, and it's so incredibly effective.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I had when I first got this, I had stuff on my calendar uh that day, and I was like, I'm gonna like shove that stuff back for the next 90 minutes, and I'm just gonna read this because this is way more interesting than whatever I have planned.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: So this it really works, and I just love it.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: But can you talk about how you developed the story and why you decided to go with the story in the first place?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, stories are hardwired into our um, you know, into who we are as human beings, uh, sitting around a campfire, uh, you know, doing an oral history.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it it is it is in our nature.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's pretty obvious anytime somebody opens a book, and you can tell the difference between opening up, you know, hi, my name is Richard Fenton.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to share a concept with you.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: In the following pages, you will learn, you know, blah, blah, blah.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, okay, that's fine.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it serves a purpose.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: It gets you from point A to point B.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: But when you open a book and it says, in 1953, three men climbed on a boat headed for Ireland.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: They had no idea what they were going to find when they hit the shore.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, I have to tell you, one of those things draws you in and the other one doesn't.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, stories just do that.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: We always want to know, oh, well, what happened?
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what happened.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And so to us, and and we were inspired, I admit, we were inspired by Ken Blanchard.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the one minute manager was a profound change.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: It was a turning point in the world of business books.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, business books before that were always um, you know, were always big, and uh, you know, and and stories were not the not the norm, fables were not the norm.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And Ken Blanchard kind of took the lid off of that basket, and he ended up being the one to teaching, you know, pub the publishing houses.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: People want short books and they want stories.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And so when we sat down to write this, I thought, well, you know, this story is really about something that happened to me.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: It is my story.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: So we thought, let's tell it in the form of a story.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And then as far as the format, you know, we just basically said, you know, what are the what are the key points?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: What are the six or eight things we would want to teach somebody if we were doing a standard book?
13:08
SPEAKER_00: What would the chapters be?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: And then we just broke this story down into separate chapters and separate events.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and unlike, unlike the typical thing, which is the millionaire barber next door, and there's 10 chapters, and it's 10 Tuesdays in a row, you know, Bob gets, puts on his clothes and walks across the lawn to the barber's house, and they sit at the table.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is not a story make.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: That that's like that's lazy storytelling.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: That's just kind of it's a it's a it's a gimmick.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: It's a gimmick.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, we said, no, no, we we want there to be an actual beginning, middle, end.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: We want there to be a transformation, and we want the we want the reader to be able to say, what would it be like if this were happening to me?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we were, I don't want to say we were lucky, but I will say that it came together very easily and very quickly.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: The book took 17 days to write from beginning to end, and uh we haven't changed a word of it since.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I will say this too, Kent, is is that uh one, Richard, when we met, had written three screenplays.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: And so he is a natural fiction writer anyway.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: And so he very much wanted to incorporate his love of character development and fiction.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: The tricky part, of course, was to develop that character quickly because the book is only 80 pages.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: So we really needed to have readers uh like the salesperson, Eric, the main character.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: We we needed to paint him as quickly as we could as your average person.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: Um, he's not an exceptional salesperson, so we didn't want to come at Go for No from a on-high, hey, this is an amazing top performer.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: We wanted the reader to see themselves in this character.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: So we painted him as a very average person who, you know, gets caught up at work with BS that he has to deal with, and the wife going, like, did you take out the trash?
15:09
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, so he's got like these ambitions, but at the same time, he's struggling.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: And so we wanted people to um relate to that.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think that we did a good job.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: The funny part though is that as much as you liked it and and we like it, because we resonate with stories as well.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Probably the biggest criticism we get on the other side of it is people say, I started the book and I was like, Where is this going?
15:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, this is ridiculous.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Why am I reading about this guy?
15:40
SPEAKER_02: I could care less about this nonsense.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: And then they say, But by the time I got to chapter five, I got it and I'm reading it and I'm absorbing lessons.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: So for pe some people get frustrated by it.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, I loved it, and I I thought it was um it was it was helpful and fun on a variety of levels, but it was also a good story.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: And I'm kind of a story and movie nerd.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm the guy who watches all the uh you know behind the scenes stuff and reading screenplays of my favorite movies and that kind of jazz.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: And by the time I finished, I was like, I feel satisfied story-wise.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: I learned something really, really important that I'm gonna start putting into practice, but it was like structured well and it was satisfying emotionally, which is not easy to do when you're trying to build a story around concepts.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: So congrats.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not that you need to hear my congrats, but well, not for whatever that's worth.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: It means a lot.
16:35
unknown: Yes.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: So I have to ask, okay, with the new book when they say no, so this is not structured as a story.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Now I haven't read the whole thing, but as I'm because I just got it yesterday, literally, as I go through, this is not structured as a story, correct?
16:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was that fair to say okay.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: This is a typical nonfiction book.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: So my question is, how would somebody know when a concept that they have would work better in a in a parable or fable storytelling type format versus more of a standard nonfiction format?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Um I I would love to tell you that I have a definitive uh teachable format, an answer for that.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that in these two books that we've just talked about, this one had a very succinct singular message.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: If you fail more, you'll succeed more.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And every single thing we did in this book was able to come back to that one message.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: This one had 41 different individual points that we wanted to make, which were all things that a person could think, say, or do when someone said no to them.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And that was a kind of our our, I don't want to call it a criticism, but people said, Hey, thanks a lot.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: You've helped me increase my failure rate with your first book.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: What do I do now?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I've got everybody saying no to me.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Could you please tell me what I'm supposed to do with all these no's?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: So when we sat down with this, we said, well, we're not going to do a book of 41 chapters, and we're not going to have multiple points in a chapter.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: So we just said, now the structure of this book is more of a um more of a almost like a reference book.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: It's almost you can run down, you can run down the uh table of contents, you can pick something, you can go read those one or two pages, and it will help you through that one little thing.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of the deciding reason.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: I I'm really glad that you chose to do that because I as I got this book, I'm looking at the table of contents and I'm like, I'm mentally ticking off all these things like, oh, yeah, I need to do that, I need to do that.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: That applies to me, that applies to me.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: So I just don't, I think this would have been difficult to to bake into a story format.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Whereas I guess some some concepts, if you have kind of like an overarching concept that has a few points or something, maybe that would work well in that format.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: So I guess really the content or the the point you're trying to make really determines what format that it works best in, I guess.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I think so too.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: I think also because we knew from the get-go that Go for No needed to be on the short side.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, we we, you know, it's for anybody who has to face failure and rejection in their life.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: So whether you are an actor going on an edition or a writer submitting work, a salesperson, a fundraiser, as I said earlier, you know, anybody who has to face that.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: But we also knew that it was going to be short.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that the story, the fact that it's 80 pages, made it writing a story easier as opposed to tackling something that was a 300-page novel, to where we would then have to start bringing in all kinds of characters and all kinds of problems.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: And we would so lose, to Rich's point, we would so lose the theme by getting lost in problems with the characters and and and side side issues maybe with other characters, right?
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And so it that would just be that just wouldn't work.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you mentioned, Andrea, this idea of doing a short book because this is something I feel really passionate about and strongly about is the vast majority of books are just too stinking long, especially in our that's the closest I ever get to profanity on this podcast, I guess.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: So um, but I really feel that way because when I I'm just gonna be honest, whenever I got this in the mail, I was like, yes, I can read this really fast.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not another 250-page business book.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I can read this fast and I can get something from it, I can start doing it immediately.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: So I would love to hear both of your thoughts on the value of writing short books and and maybe how how can people orient their writing more towards short books?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Um especially if they feel pressured to do all these big long, you know, 300-page books.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a very interesting thing.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And this took a little bit for us to wrap our our minds around too.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to tell you that we're so smart that we knew all of this when we started.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: We didn't.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: We stumbled into some of it accidentally.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at Ken Blanchard's book again, um, you know, The One Minute Manager, and there are many other, you know, fables that are that are out there, um uh they're written for business and yet they're short.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to say to yourself, well, wait a second, don't business people want value?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you'd think that the more pages, the more valuable, as if the book is being sold by the pound or by the page.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's really not.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: If you think of it in terms of what's the purpose of a book, the purpose of a book is to communicate a concept, especially a business book.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's to effect some form of change in the individual who reads it, some behavior change, ideally, that leads to a result.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, you've already said this.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: You got the book and said, Oh, wow, a short book.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: That book immediately went to the front of your reading list.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: It did.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Because it Short.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got in your bookshelf somewhere, and every one of your listeners right now, you know, I'm telling you, turn around, look at your bookshelf.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: That's doing you've got 200-page, 250-page, 300-page books that you bought with great intentions.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: You loved the title.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: You knew it was going to be a great book.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: You bought it.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: You put it in the shelf.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And that book is still sitting there two years later.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And every time you look at it, you think, yeah, one of these days when I have the time, one of these days when I have enough time, I'm going to start that book.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing that most people miss is selling books is not just about selling books.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It's about consumption.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: It's about the consumption of the book.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: And so if a writer wants to sell a lot of books and they want to get the most valuable of all marketing, which is word of mouth, tell me about any book that you read the first 30 pages of, and then you ran around telling everybody how great the book was.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: No, you tell people about it when you finish the book.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: So consumption became really, really important to us.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And we learned it as we went.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we started out just passing out the book and we got two comments.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: One, love your book.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And two, thank you for keeping it short.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I threw it in my briefcase.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I took it on the airplane with me.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: I read the book.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I was done by the time the plane landed.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we had this enormous aha moment where we said, wow, you know, get away from this idea that the volume or the size of a book is indicative of its value.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just say this how big would a book have to be if it contained the um the uh combination to the lock that had a million dollars in the safe?
23:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that is one page, right?
23:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, right.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: So get rid of this idea that they have to be big.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: They do not have to be big.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the fiction world, I'm a big Jack Reacher fan.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I will tell you that, you know, I like seeing a 300-page book.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I want my I want my$20 worth.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's just a whole different thing.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And people have to think that through.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: And I I will I will add to that as well.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Um that, you know, we also were not concerned with going the traditional publishing route.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: We self-published from the get-go, and this was pre-Amazon.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: So we are very much publishing dinosaurs.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: And we weren't, we weren't our goal actually was to sell direct to companies.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: So we would send out copies and uh we had a very crude website that we were selling books, you know, selling some GoForno books on as well, but we weren't trying to fit into this mold.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And I think today it's even easier to do things that are different, creative, go out of that mold.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why you see so many books that are non-traditional, uh, but we weren't trying to do the Wall Street um, you know, New York Times 265 pages perfect, you know, hardcover, uh, so that we could establish ourselves in that world.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: We wanted to, as Richard said, we wanted consumption and we wanted the vice president of sales at a company to say, oh, I can order 100 of these very easily for my salespeople.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think my salespeople will read it because it's short.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you about that.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: That that is something that uh, of course, is a it's a point of discussion a lot in the book world, is um, you know, paying to have a book on the New York.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, I know nobody says you don't pay directly to have it on the list, but you kind of do in some ways.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Um if if a book because you both work a lot with the business people, work with a lot of companies and and have been in that world a while.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: Um do people really care if something is a New York Times bestseller or a Wall Street Journal bestseller or USA Today bestseller?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Does that actually make a functional difference in book sales or the perception of quality?
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Or is it more just kind of a it's a marketing thing that some that a lot of people just sell to authors as a value add that doesn't really make a difference?
26:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious your perspective on that.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: Our perspective is it's great if you want to be on the professional speaking circuit to corporate America.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: It I mean, there's no doubt that Google and Microsoft and you know, pick your whatever company, um, Macy's or whomever, you know, they want to bring in a speaker who has the bona fides and and they want to be able to say, you know, so-and-so, they're their book hit number one in the Wall Street, you know, at all.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: And so from that standpoint, yes, it matters.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: And also that helps the speaking fee.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: It will usually double the speaking fee if you get on that list and and you can kind of stay on that list and get those accolades.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: But for the rest of us, I don't think anyone has ever cared back when we were selling GoForNo in 2007, and we would tout that we had sold whatever number we were at back then, 25,000 copies and 50,000 copies.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it did finally when we put it on Amazon after three years in 2010, we hit number one on the sales and selling list.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: And so we've kind of we've used that in our marketing, and I think that is helpful, but in the end, has that really sold books?
27:28
SPEAKER_02: No, what really has sold books for us has been word of mouth from people telling other people, you you gotta read go for no, it solves this particular problem, and it's an easy short read.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: And so they have people have very little hesitation recommending it.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and a big part of this, Kent, is that the people who um are the meeting planners at corporations um uh or or even at speakers' bureaus, uh oftentimes it's not the president or the CEO, it's not the financial person who's hiring the speaker, it's the person who's putting on the conference and they're filling slots.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And if you I don't know if you remember the saying, there used to be a saying, this goes back to the 70s and 80s now, um, nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard that before.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was the early computer days, and the whole idea was like hey, if you're gonna put yourself out there and you're gonna hire some strange new computer company with a computer you've never heard of, and the computer system fails, well, then you're likely to get fired.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: But if you've hired IBM and the computer fails, the president of the company isn't gonna fire you.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna say, Well, of course you did IBM.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: It's IBM's fault.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times what happens is these speakers, um, the people who hire speakers for conferences, they want to hire somebody that they can say, I hired this person because.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And they want to be able to say, because he's the New York Times number one bestseller, and then therefore the president, the CEO goes, yeah, okay, well, that makes sense.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really almost a protection mechanism in some cases.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: So it's almost kind of like a shorthand for quality that's uh that there's some group of people out there who have thought enough of this book to to buy enough copies to land on the list.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh okay, that makes a lot of sense.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: That really makes a lot of sense.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, one thing I wanted to ask about too, uh, and Richard, you mentioned this right before we hit record, is uh this idea of really paying attention to the title and the subtitle of a book because uh like you absolutely get an A plus.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Go for Now is such a great title.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to spell, it rhymes, uh, it's short and punchy.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any thoughts for writers who are working on their books, particularly nonfiction books, and what they should consider when they're thinking about their title and subtitle?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a couple things about that.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Um the the the first thing I would say is that even for uh and of course the question here becomes like, well, what does this have to do with ghostwriting?
30:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, and is it is a ghostwriter's job to come up with a title of a book?
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, no, probably not.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I would say in most cases, the person who wants to have the book ghostwritten has probably already come up with a title.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: They've already write a book and it's gonna be called, yeah, it's gonna be called To the Moon, right?
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the book's gonna be called.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's almost always um a bad title, whatever the title is that that the that the person has come up with.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's usually a bad title.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Not always, but a lot of times it's just not a good title.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: And so the question then becomes is somebody who's hired to help somebody write a book, do they have a responsibility to say, hey, now that I've done 15 hours interviewing you and I've gathered your the content and I've started writing this book, do they have a responsibility to say, you know, this might be a better title?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: And then to present some, you know, an option or several options.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think they do.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: I think anybody who's going to get involved in a project where they're helping somebody else write or publish a book has an obligation to be able to say, is this title and is this subtitle doing what it's supposed to do?
31:18
SPEAKER_00: So go for know was chosen in part because it fit with the story where you know I was told that I had to go for know.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And I went, wow, that's a phrase.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: You don't're going to miss with that.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Um and we wanted something short that would be go for no.com.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: We wanted something that people would say and remember.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, so that came out pretty that that went pretty easily, but that's where the subtitle comes in.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think that the title of a book has to tell you everything.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, it doesn't have to tell you, you know, hardly anything.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there's a there's a book that was out there 25 years ago, 30 years ago, it's called Zap.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, Zap.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so what is that?
32:01
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Is it a book on electricity?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, are we are we killing mosquitoes in the backyard?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: What's what what is this zap?
32:08
SPEAKER_00: So the title doesn't really have to do all that much other than to get your attention.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: The title should get someone to say, huh, what is this?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: That's catchy, that's interesting.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: It's just an attention-getting device.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: The subtitle is the part of the cover that does all the work.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: The subtitle explains what the title means and what's in it for the reader.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And so in our particular case, go for no, it's great.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: It's an okay title, but until you get to yes is the destination, no is how you get there, until you get to the subtitle, the title doesn't really give you, you know, a full reference, full frame of reference for what this book is about.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I think um, I think titles and subtitles are massively, massively important.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and same one with this one, you know, not that we do everything perfectly, but when they say no, okay, you know, what does that mean?
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, the subtitle is the definitive guide for handling rejection in sales.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: It's perfect.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And so it's those two pieces have to those two pieces have to be there.
33:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:14
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34:03
SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation with Richard and Andrea.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to take a couple of minutes here and apply some of the ideas that you have and both go for no and when they say no to to writers who are doing work who are doing client work.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: Now I know every author who's doing any kind of writing, you know, any time that you have in exchange for money, you have a business.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: So any authors who are selling their books, they have a book business.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: But uh I spend a lot of my time ghostwriting.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of my primary gig, so to speak.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people listening are doing editing, ghostwriting, freelance writing, some kind of client work.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think as a whole, I'm painting with a very broad brushstroke here, but uh writers as a whole seem to be not always the most assertive types, like in sales situations.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: We kind of like to go into our caves and do our creative work, and sometimes we're not naturally the best assertive salespeople.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: So in your book, you have you know several dozens of things that I'm gonna I'm probably gonna give away a lot of copies of this book because it's really good.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: All my friends really need this book.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: But are there a few things that that that you both could highlight here in this conversation that would be really, really helpful for writers who are doing client work to handle those rejections better and um really help that to improve their business or their closing rate?
35:26
SPEAKER_01: That was a really long question.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: No, no, I'm uh you know where I'm going.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh well, the first thing is um on the flip side of go for no, and this is something that we don't talk about in as much in the book, but it's something that we have found that we train on uh kind of after the fact when we do speaking engagements or we do kind of virtual training.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: And that really has to do with the willing, you know, we're telling people you need to hear no more often, you need to be willing to hear no.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: And so what that comes down to is having that assertiveness to ask.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: And and in the book, when they say no, we go through four different kinds of selling styles.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: And writers typically fall into the selling style that we call the friend.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: This is a selling style that has a high concern for relationships, but a lower concern for results.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: And and it's it's a really cool methodology that we've been training since our days, actually, in doing retail sales training um 25 years ago when we met.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh, but it applies really to anybody.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And that that friend sales style isn't assertive.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: They are great order takers, they're great listeners, they're very friendly, um, but they they then tend not to be assertive and ask.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: And they tend to also think that when somebody tells them to go for no, that they have to be a pushy, aggressive, salesy salesperson.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: But the idea is not that.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: It's about um, it's really about understanding that to sell is to serve.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: And you can't serve a client that you don't have, right?
37:04
SPEAKER_02: So you you you uh it is your prerogative to do your best to ask great questions and then to have the courage to say, hey, so would you like to go forward and be willing to hear those no's more often so that you you do hear those yeses.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: So asking is a skill that gets developed.
37:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: And there's no waiting for confidence, there's no hoping, waiting for that fear to go away.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: It's getting it, it's it's having more conversations with potential clients and doing it enough to where you get comfortable saying, my fee is X.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Would you like to go ahead and get started next week or next month?
37:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, and the more you can practice doing that, uh, the better that you get.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: I think the other really big thing that writers suffer with, we all and and we suffer with it when it comes to reviews, we suffer when it when it comes to work is taking no personally.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: This is also something we don't address in the book.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: We address it, address it more in the new book when they say no, which is how to get over this rejection and this feeling that we're somehow defeated and not good enough and find looking for that validation by having somebody hire us.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: And so we've got it one, get the resilience built up, which means doing it more often, getting putting ourselves out there, making more asks.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: That's a part of it, but also truly recognizing that the no isn't about you, even when you're involved and it's about you.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: So it's never so it's literally never about you.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: And my favorite story that I like to tell uh in relationship to this, and and it's so funny.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, we wrote a book called Um, it's funny, we wrote a book called Million Dollar Book Formula, which is about writing books.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: We also wrote a book uh many years ago called Million Dollar Year.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: It is a fable, also.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: We wrote it a few years after Go for No.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: It had moderate success, wasn't great.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's some people that love it, they just love it, which I don't even get.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, um, so we put it up on Amazon, and like all authors do, and there was one day where I just I jumped on Amazon and I thought, oh, I want to see if Million Dollar Year has gotten any new reviews.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: So I pull up the page on Amazon and I proceed to read this one star review.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: And the comment was uh something like, um the person said, Um, this book is not worth the paper that it's printed on.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you've ever written anything, you know that's a soul-crus, right?
39:45
SPEAKER_02: You just go like, oh, that's terrible.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: You just feel horrible because you never want to be that person.
39:51
SPEAKER_02: But I was really practicing this idea of detaching, depersonalizing, and understand that people have their own preferences and that there's art that for whatever reason I don't like and doesn't resonate with me.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: So, how can I take that feedback and be really, really okay with it?
40:11
SPEAKER_02: So I uh, and this was back in the day when you could actually respond to reviews, which was a big no-no.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: Like you just don't want to respond to reviews as an author anyway.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: But this was when you could actually physically do it before Amazon removed that feature.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: And I wrote this person back and I said, Listen, I appreciate that you tried the thank you for buying the book, thank you for trying it.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry it wasn't your cup of tea, but I get it because Richard and I went to the movies uh and we saw a movie called Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which was a big, I think Oscar nominated movie.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: And we walked out, we walked out after 20 minutes.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: Like it just we we did not we saw the people fighting in in the sky and we were like, we're out, we're we're out, we're just in trees.
40:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I hanging in trees.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: We are so out.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: We just I we ate our popcorn and we left early.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: And so I I said in my my comment to this person, I said, so I get it.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes there's just there's just stuff that's not for you.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: And I use that as the example, and I I just kind of forgot about it.
41:15
SPEAKER_02: And it felt really good because I really kind of was able to assimilate that negative comment and just say, it's okay, it's really about this other person, as much as all the things that I don't like aren't are uh about my preferences, beliefs, background, all of that stuff.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: Now, the kind of the funny thing is, several weeks later, I get an email from Amazon that this person had repl had responded.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: They actually went back, reread the book, and changed their review to four stars and said, I reread it and it's actually not as bad as I initially thought.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if they were in a bad mood or what.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: But that which is which is beside the point, because the point really is that when we get that negativity, that there's there are ways of thinking about it and changing to disassociate from it and to to almost have compassion for that other opinion.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: And when we do that, we're so empowered.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it would the it was never about us.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: That person's reaction was about them.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was not about us, it was about their likes or dislikes, their preferences, the mood they were in on a given day, the fact that they're you know they got yelled at by their spouse, who knows what's going on with them.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that isn't about us.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And even if it is a quote about us, um, the reality is this person didn't like this book.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, the next person, you know, would give it five stars and say, I loved this.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: So was it the book?
42:47
SPEAKER_00: No, it's never the book, it's always the reader.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you watch any movie today that is about an artist, you know, I'm talking about the classical movie where you've got the abstract artist and he lives in a loft and he's doing his crazy things and, you know, he's he's this person that's anti-social.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, he doesn't want to have to go to the corporate mixer to rub elbows with the buyers.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's kind of the way the world is.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: You've got creators and they don't generally want to be the salespeople, and you've got the salespeople who do the selling.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, those two pieces have to be there.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: They have to be there.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're a person who says, I want to create stuff, but I don't want to market it, well, then you better find somebody else to market it.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Because you're going to create stuff that never sells.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: So one way or another, you have to create it and sell it, or you have to create it and you have to get a partner who's going to be the marketer.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and that's really, I think, a key thing for people.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't handle rejection at all, you just can't do it, then you better find that.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: You better find a marketer.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: It's possible for people who who are not a natural salesperson to become really, really good at sales within a practice and determination?
44:12
SPEAKER_01: Where is there some element of this that is kind of like it is it is a function of kind of your personality and and whatnot?
44:19
SPEAKER_02: I think uh my opinion on this is I don't know that somebody who's not naturally into the into sales would become maybe a great salesperson.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: In other words, I don't know that they would ever fall in love with sales.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Right, but but they could become a lot more effective at it.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: A lot more effective.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: And that starts with really one simple thing, and that is the the frame in which they look at sales.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, so many creatives, and it doesn't matter if you're an editor or what whatever piece that you like to play, a graphic designer in the process, there's this feeling that sales is so distasteful that it is beneath them that they don't want to have to do it.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: It's icky.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: And so reframing sales as instead of I have to sell, it's I get to meet prospects, I get to share what I do, how I do it.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna do that as to with as many people as I can, as fast as I can.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna tell my story and I'm going to find the people that fit with me that resonate with me, and I get to do it.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: And so instead of looking at sales as this horrible thing where um and fighting against it, you know, a lot of creative people, and we are creative, I mean, we are creatives at our core.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: We just happen to also have sales as what we are creating.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of a funny, it's kind of a funny mixture.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: Richard always says he is not a natural salesperson.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: He he says he he says he isn't, but he is.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, but he is.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, but he doesn't love it, right?
45:59
SPEAKER_02: And and so I think that that creatives wear I hate sales as a badge of honor.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: It's like I'm not, I don't like it.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm I don't want to do it, it's you know, it's not who I am.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm an artiste, I'm an artist.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: I yes, I and we get it, but when you can see it as a means to an end, which is this is how you can serve people.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: And so come to love the idea that to sell is to serve.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: Come to love the idea that by showing people your work and and also telling people a story about you so that you aren't just a commodity.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of people see, especially editors, editors are just seen as it's just a commodity.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: I just need somebody to proofread.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: I just I need a proofreader.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, are you breathing?
46:44
SPEAKER_02: Can you breathe?
46:44
SPEAKER_02: Can you read?
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Okay, you're a proofreader.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: I will, how much do you cost, right?
46:48
SPEAKER_02: And so it's just such such a commodity business.
46:51
SPEAKER_02: So tell a story about who you are, why you love to proofread, what what you do for your clients, and uh and make that a differentiation.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think you can come to love selling that way.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Gosh.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I could talk to both of you literally for hours about this because there's there's so much uh depth to this.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: And it was interesting uh a few minutes ago.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: You kind of mentioned the idea of uh being afraid of rejection and looking for that validation from people.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: And there's such a large piece of this, isn't there, that has to has to do many times with how we were raised and maybe what our birth order was and what our other experiences were that make us afraid of rejection and wanting that validation from other people.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: And there's probably a whole range of psychological, it's a big psychological can of worms, I'm sure, on some level.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: It absolutely is a psycho.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: Richard tells me all the time, he says, and and and we all do this, but as because we're a writing team, he will come into my office sometimes and he'll be like, I have to read you this page.
47:57
SPEAKER_02: And it is the equivalent of like the five-year-old going, mommy, mommy, you have to see the painting, yeah, you have to see the painting I did, right?
48:04
SPEAKER_02: And so we all love to get that instantaneous feedback on our work that um because we love doing it, and there's such amazing, and unless you've written something, you you you anybody who's written anything knows this feeling or created anything, a piece of music or art, you know the satisfaction when somebody else engages it with you and has right, has that feeling, and it's just you go like, oh, it's such a great feeling.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a part of it.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: So it's not all validation, but there is a part where you um, you know, you you want that approval, and that's probably underlying it, uh, as well as just the idea that, you know, when your brain gets rejected, when somebody says no to you, your brain has an instantaneous thought.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: And that thought is, what does this mean?
48:59
SPEAKER_02: That's the first question your brain is asking.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: What does this mean?
49:02
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, your brain will tell you what this means is you're gonna be a starving artist forever.
49:07
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna live under the freeway overpass.
49:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, you're never gonna make it in this business, and you might as well give up now, give up right now.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: That way we can be safe and we can actually eat tonight.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: Your brain is your brain thinks you won't even eat tonight because you have to go out and do some creative artisty thing.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: And so we're constant that that's something else that we talk about a lot in our work is uh how to silence that those negative thoughts as soon as they come up.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: You you're not even good enough and fast enough to stop the thought.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: So when you have the thought, you then you have to start canceling out and say, I hear you, Breen.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate your warnings.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: And I know you think I'm a total idiot that's gonna get us killed, but everything's okay, and I'm gonna keep doing my thing and roll with the feelings of rejection.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, back to this idea of drawing the drawing a picture and running down the hallway and saying, mommy, mommy, look what I did.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, for creatives, for anybody who creates things, um, whether it's you know, writing a book or doing a painting or writing a song or whatever it happens to be, um we become so connected to it because we see it as an extension of who we are, of our personality, right?
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Of our love of life of whatever.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that if a person was selling um refrigerators for General Electric, and they went to a prospect, and the prospect said, I hate that refrigerator.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, most people don't go like, oh my God, they hate me, because I didn't design the refrigerator.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't pick the color, I didn't manufacture it.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can disconnect yourself.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Most salespeople can disconnect themselves from the things that they're selling.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: But the creator, the person who creates something, who writes the song, and then they play it for somebody, and the person says, that song sucks.
51:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, that's a little different because now you're you're you're touching my soul.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: I sat there and I created this from within me.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: And so creators have to do a better job of understanding that just because you created it doesn't mean that that is still you.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: That's just something you created.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: So if I run down the hall and go, mommy, mommy, look at this, and she says, that's an ugly painting.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, does that mean that I should never paint again?
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Or should I say, oh, mommy didn't like that one?
51:37
SPEAKER_00: It was blue.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: I'll do another one, and this time I'll try red.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: There's got to be some disconnection between the creation and the creator.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, yeah, you're gonna take rejection very personally.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's so hard to do, but that's kind of the emotionally healthy thing to do is separating your your personal value and your the your validation from the things that you create.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: Your creation exists as a separate thing apart from you, or at least it should.
52:03
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
52:04
SPEAKER_03: Right.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's that's the core concept of go for no.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: The core concept of go for know is create a lot of things, take a lot of chances, take a lot of shots, right?
52:14
SPEAKER_00: And some are gonna go in and some aren't.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Some will, some won't.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: So what?
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Someone's waiting.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, I I created, I wrote this book, it bombed.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: That has nothing to do with your next book.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with you, perhaps.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: It might be the timing in the market.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: It might be, it might be a whole bunch of different things.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll tell you a very quick story here.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: When Andrea and I wrote, um, we wrote Go for No, we got an agent.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: The agent said, Oh, I'm gonna sell this book to, you know, that we're gonna get a New York Madison Avenue publishing company, uh, one of the largest, the big fours, said, we're gonna publish your book.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: And then they backed out of the last minute.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: And we were devastated.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: We're like, wow, you know, why'd you decide not to do it?
52:58
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, our analysis department has determined that you will never sell over 5,000 copies of this book.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we break even.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: And we're not in the break-even business, we're in the profit business.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: And so we were like, oh, wow, that's really terrible.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we had taken that personally and believed that ridiculous nonsense, then we wouldn't have redone the cover, self-published it again, gone out and done another marketing effort.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: And not to brag, but the book that wasn't going to sell 5,000 copies has now sold 500,000 copies.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: So now the question is, was this ever about us?
53:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: And was it ever about the book?
53:38
SPEAKER_00: No, it's about other people.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to keep putting things out there.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: Even when people, some people tell you it's no good, that's them saying it.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: That's not the next person.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
53:49
SPEAKER_02: We also do, I just want to add, we do have a spectacular failure of a book.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: I I'm not even going to tell you the title, Kent.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: I because I'm not going to go there.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm really curious.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: But this book was so bad.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: How many copies did we do?
54:02
SPEAKER_02: Or do you believe we sold?
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh God.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: 16?
54:05
SPEAKER_00: I think we sold 16 copies.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: Not 16,000.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: Not 16,000.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: 16, one six.
54:10
SPEAKER_02: One six, yes.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: And we do we talk about that book in million dollar book formula because in that book, we analyzed why did that, why did Go for No was so successful.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: We have a couple other books that we analyzed that were moderately successful.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: And then this book was such an incredible failure.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: And so we analyzed all of the different ingredients, and title and subtitle are is one of them.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: And the problem solution that we were focused on was one of them.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: And so there are, we've kind of come up with 13 ways from a nonfiction standpoint that really have the biggest chance of making a book successful.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: Um and so we have had, I just want people to know, like, we're not sitting here giving advice and have nothing but success.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: We know failure, we know it well.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: I know our time is getting short here, and I I so respect both of you uh and appreciate you appreciate you both so much for taking the time to do this this uh interview.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: I want to throw out one more super quick question, which I think is something that a lot of people doing client work, uh particularly in the writing world, face a lot, which is how do you deal with it whenever you talk to a prospective client, they're very excited about what you're doing, you put together a proposal, it seems like they would say yes immediately based on your conversation, and then you just don't hear anything from them.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: How would you recommend that that writers um and by writers, quote unquote, what I really mean is Kent Sanders is how would you recommend that when Kent Sanders sends a proposal to somebody based on a great initial sales call, but then they just won't respond back?
55:54
SPEAKER_01: What are the best ways to handle that?
55:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um so you start off following up relentlessly, and um you do that, you you set a you set a a number of follow-ups, and I would follow up in different methodologies.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: So I would try email, I would try text, I would try social media, like once a week or something like that.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh even more than that.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: I would go, I would follow up.
56:21
SPEAKER_02: And and one of the things that I think the position that that you need to come from is one of being an advocate for change.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: What's happening is probably, as you as you well know, this is probably resistance coming up for them from being scared of moving forward with this project.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: This is that resistance that Stephen Pressfield talks about.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: And so I think calling out the elephant in the room, which is, hey, you may be feeling a little resistance, you may be a little nervous.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, I get it.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh, maybe talk through them with that.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: So I would I would mix up your follow-ups, I would address that in one of your follow-ups, I would address maybe a potential other potential objection in the follow-up.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: And then after you follow up pretty hardcore, and I mean maybe nine, 10, 11, 12 times, then you can say, and now this is now, let's say this is six weeks later.
57:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, you can say, hey, you know, I've, I, I, you're probably tired of hearing from me now.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's only because you were so excited about this project.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm going to, I will stop contacting you now.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to assume that your, and this is kind of that breakup email.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to assume that your priorities, needs, whatever have shifted, and that you're unable to go forward with this for whatever reason, or you've changed your mind entirely.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: And so you won't be hearing from me if I've misread the situation, or if something else is going on, please let me know I'm here for you now or perhaps in the future.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: And then that's it.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: And and Andrea, um uh, you know, when she says relentlessly, she doesn't mean obnoxiously, she means in service, of course.
58:06
SPEAKER_00: Just I'll just give you, I'll just give you an example because we've done some books for other people.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: We don't do a lot of deep ghostwriting, but we do, you know, we do um some copy editing and you know, put the, you know, help people just put the whole thing together, the cover, the title, et cetera.
58:21
SPEAKER_00: And we have a client that we're talking to right now, as a matter of fact.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: And we've um we've had the conversations, we've talked about the project, we've talked about the price, they have the contract, and I won't want to say they've ghosted us, but it's been a while.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: And so the question was hey, how do we recon how do we recontact them?
58:40
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, oh, she made a comment about, and I think my book would make a great movie.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: So she made that comment.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: So we're reaching out right now to a company that turns books into movies to get a quote for what it would cost to film what she's done.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: So we can go back to her and say, hey, we went and got a quote for you on turning the book into a movie.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: So we're not just saying, buy the book, buy the book, sign the contract, you know, where's our money?
59:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: We're just showing that we're still thinking about her and that we're still in her best interest.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, she might end up doing the book with someone else and hiring them to do the movie.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know, that that's life.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: But the point is always find different ways to come back to recontact the person.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: That's genius.
59:28
SPEAKER_01: She's changed my whole life.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
59:30
SPEAKER_01: In three minutes.
59:31
SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that this is really, really good stuff.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: I just so appreciate you both taking the time to do this.
59:36
SPEAKER_01: I know this is uh I can just feel it.
59:38
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be one of the uh one of the podcast episodes that I probably will get some of the most uh feedback from in a while because this has been so enormously helpful.
59:49
SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you both and your writing, and I cannot wait to dig into this.
59:54
SPEAKER_01: This is gone home with me tonight uh to read.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: So thank you again so much.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: This has been really, really wonderful.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: Our pleasure.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't that a fun conversation?
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: Not only lots of fun, I love these guys.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: They're they have so much energy and they have so much wisdom.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: But man, I learned a lot as well.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: These are my favorite kinds of interviews where the guests are not only a lot of fun, but I come away feeling inspired and motivated and knowing some things that I didn't know beforehand.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_01: In this case, specifically, how do we deal with rejection?
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: And man, I cannot think of a more relevant topic for us as writers and as creative people.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, let's face it, rejection is a part of life.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_01: And if we can't learn to deal with it, we're not gonna get very far.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: So many, many thanks to Richard and Andrea for taking the time to be a guest on today's episode.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed this conversation.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate you both.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned this in my introduction before the conversation, but I want to emphasize again make sure and get these two books that we've mentioned here in this episode, GoForKnow and When They Say No.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: These are really, really important books for you.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: No matter what kind of writing that you do, or if you do or don't do client work, this is really, really good stuff, and I promise you're gonna love these books, and they're really gonna help you.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_01: So make sure and grab those and check out their website, which is goforknow.com.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: As always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.